


Choked Back

by chuusei_teki_na_koe



Category: Twosetviolin
Genre: Denial, First Time, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 09:46:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21390127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chuusei_teki_na_koe/pseuds/chuusei_teki_na_koe
Summary: Eddy Chen is not in love with his best friend.Denial is a hell of a drug.
Relationships: Eddy Chen/Brett Yang
Comments: 21
Kudos: 340





	Choked Back

**Author's Note:**

> Pure stubbornness has kept me from titling this "8 times Eddy didn't say I love you and one time he did."

1

The first time was when they were kids.

Eddy hadn't really been thinking of it consciously, then. He hadn't really been aware of it. There's too much going on in your head at fifteen, and you don't have enough experience to get how you really feel about anything, much less something like that.

His feelings hadn't followed the careful trajectory that played out in movies or the stories he heard from other kids, so he hadn't gotten it. It wasn't like he'd ever gotten butterflies in his stomach, or whatever that was supposed to mean. It was normal to want to see your best friend, normal to be happy when he was around.

Sure, he entertained some thoughts, but he entertained those thoughts about everyone. It was like how one of his other friends had once suggested they all picture their middle-aged, balding math teacher naked, and then everyone had been unable to unthink it. Sometimes you were just sitting in class, bored, and the thought popped into your head, _what would that person look like naked?_ And then once you went down that train of thought, there was no stopping it.

And theoretically, wasn't it possible to get off to anything? He'd been on the internet. He knew what went on there.

Then, the summer he was fifteen, he dreamed he was kissing Brett.

It was such a chaste dream, really, nothing more than a little kiss. At the time, Eddy didn't even know what a kiss felt like, though he'd tried that thing where you fold up the flesh of your palm and tongue it. That didn't feel like much. But though the physical sensation of the kiss in his dream was vague and undefined, in the dream, he'd been holding Brett's hand, too, and that had felt too real. Not like he and Brett ever held hands, that'd be weird. There had just been once, for some kind of dumb group activity when they'd made everyone get in a circle and hold hands, and Eddy had obviously been next to Brett—unlike some other forced hand-holding experiences which had involved cold, sweaty palms, Brett's hand had been warm and dry.

How the hell had his hand remembered that sensation this long? Even when he woke up, he could still feel it.

Eddy woke up hard, and without putting much thought into it, he rubbed one out in bed.

He was still thinking of Brett, though.

He had a mild freak-out, then, and he kept thinking of Brett the next two or three times he beat off, wondering maybe what his skin felt like up close, but it was too hard to imagine, and it made him feel like shit in various ways he wasn't able to define at the time, so he stopped doing it. He could cum just fine without thinking of anything, just staring at the wall.

For a week or two after that, he was weird around Brett until he had a funny experience bumping into a girl at school and he got properly flustered and excited about it, proving yes, he liked girls, and he was just getting himself worked up all in his head for nothing.

2

The second time was when they were eighteen.

Being the good little boys that they were (or well, maybe not actually good, more like strictly-parented), Eddy had never had so much as a sip of wine before the age of eighteen. Brett had been a little ahead of him on that, and he'd told some stories that Eddy was sure were at least somewhat exaggerated, and they talked about, like, going to a big PARTY, man, and getting SO wasted and other sorts of bullshit teenaged boys think is exciting and edgy.

The reality was a lot more mundane than the sort of music video-inspired wild house party they had imagined. For Eddy's birthday, they'd all got together at a friend's house where there was also adult supervision and music that was not too loud and a very moderate and regulated amount of alcohol, and they'd had cake, and Eddy had discovered very quickly that alcohol was gross unless it was doused in something sweet, like Red Bull, and it definitely made him sick. But the party had been nice.

The other thing he discovered was that Brett didn't like being touched.

Eddy was a loud, sloppy and clingy drunk, and he spent a good half of the party poking, smacking, smushing, lightly punching, and generally harassing Brett. The whole time, Brett was entirely red-faced—probably from the booze, he was red down to his chest—shoving Eddy's hands away, shoving his face, poking him back viciously. Once, in the kitchen, Eddy swooped over to him to sling his arms around Brett's shoulders from behind, and Brett had shoved him off so hard, Eddy had staggered backward and banged his hip against the kitchen counter, nearly falling on his ass.

“Ow! What was that for?” Eddy demanded, leaning against the counter as he rubbed the spot that had hit the sharp counter corner.

“Sorry,” Brett apologized immediately. He adjusted his poorly-fitted glasses, eyes pointed down and away. “You're just being annoying.”

Eddy stopped trying to touch him, after that.

3

He went for a long time without thinking about it.

If he was going to sit down and armchair-psychoanalyze himself, maybe he'd been keeping himself so busy because he didn't want to think about it. But it wasn't like he didn't have things to fill his time. He was serious about school, serious about music, and he wanted to maintain a semblance of a social life, too. When he and Brett hung out, there were generally other people there. And he had to practice. He had to fucking _practice._ He didn't have the time to be sitting around moping over stupid bullshit that he couldn't do anything about anyway.

And yet, somehow, he had the time to date girls. Eddy went through three girlfriends during university.

They were all fine, in their own ways. People he shared something in common with and enjoyed spending time with. He liked going on dates with them, and the sex was good. That was about all anyone could expect from a relationship, right?

The third one, he stayed with. He thought, he _thought_ it was a good relationship. They didn't fight, they had fun together, they could have real conversations together, they made good music together.

After they were together for a few years, Eddy had this vague idea in his head that they would get married eventually, but it just never materialized. It wasn't a priority. Things were fine as they were, so why rock the boat?

They only had one fight, near the end, before she dumped him. It was such a stupid fight.

_When we're together, you're always texting him!_

Why the hell did she care?

4

Probably the stupidest conversation Eddy and Brett had ever had had been around Eddy's third year of university. Brett had been over at his house, Eddy's parents were gone, and they had an unattended game of _Smash_ idling on the TV as they chatted on the couch.

Eddy ribbed Brett about his poor luck with women on a regular basis. Brett just took it with a sigh like he always did. Brett was a shy guy by nature, but he made an effort to put himself out there, socially speaking—except with women. Eddy offered to set him up on various occasions, and Brett had gone on a few dates, but nothing that ever went anywhere.

“C'mon, though, you're not into anyone?” Eddy was lying back against the arm of the couch, eyes on the TV, fiddling with the controller in one hand as it meandered around the character selector, not actually starting a match. “You never wanna tell me these things.”

Brett was slumped low into the couch, leaning his side against the opposite arm, controller discarded at his feet. Eddy's toes were a few centimeters away from his thigh, carefully not touching him. “Because I'm not really _into_ anyone. I mean, sometimes I think, _oh, she's kinda cute,_ but that's it. I'm not gonna date someone just because I think she's kinda cute.”

“Why not? You start there, then you get to know her.”

“Maybe you do it that way.”

“I think most people do it that way.”

“Yeah, well.” Brett's eyes were on the worn, off-yellow carpet at his feet. “I'd rather get to know someone first. I'd only want to date someone if we were good friends.”

A poorly thought-out, impulsive reply lodged itself somewhere halfway up Eddy's throat, and he swallowed it, grabbing the controller with his other hand instead, selecting Peach. “Let's play another round. I still need to get you back for that last one.”

Brett didn't say anything, just picked up his controller and played the game.

5

The fifth time just about made Eddy break down.

They were standing in the living room at Brett's place, and Brett's arms were around his waist and he was hugging Eddy tight.

“I love you,” Brett said, barely louder than a mumble.

Eddy was frozen.

Brett pulled away gently, looking awkwardly at the floor. “I didn't realize until my grandma died that I've never said that to anyone, not even my mom. I don't want to regret not saying that to the people I care about.” Then he turned around and went into the other room like he was running away. Eddy heard the sound of him in the kitchen, opening the fridge, then closing it.

After a solid five seconds, Eddy got himself to move again. “You have such balls, man,” Eddy said loud enough to be heard in the other room. He didn't go over there. “I don't think I could say anything like that to my family.” _Much less to you._

“You should, though.”

When Eddy finally came to the kitchen, Brett had pulled out out a couple of little tapioca pudding cups, offering him one with his usual blank, dead-fish-eyed expression.

“Maybe one day,” Eddy replied, taking a pudding from him, careful to make sure that their fingers never touched.

6

Eddy really liked dumb drinking games. Whenever there was some kind of get-together among friends, he was always the first one to suggest anything from beer pong to never-have-I-ever.

He didn't like getting drunk—that always sucked. He was the kind of guy who would actually enjoy playing drinking games sober (seriously, why didn't anyone else want to play them sober?), so while everyone else was drinking, he'd take his obligatory sips and enjoy the sight of everyone else making asses of themselves. (Though he also made an ass of himself, but at least that was deliberate).

So when they had a nice group of friends over for a house party that was lost somewhere between high and low brow (true individuals of taste played beer pong while blasting Mozart), Eddy was the first one to steer never-have-I-ever off the deep end.

Sprawled over an overstuffed easy chair, fruity and barely alcoholic drink in a red solo cup in hand, Eddy scanned the room. “Never have I ever...” his eyes locked with Brett's, who was sitting on the opposite side of the ring of friends around the coffee table, looking rather red-faced. “Never have I ever fucked a dude.”

There were some laughs, one friend accused him of lying, Eddy jokingly turned aside all accusations, and all the women around the room took a drink. Brett did not. His eyes shifted away.

Eddy finished his fruity drink, and got himself another.

7

Eddy was a master of plausible deniability.

Because it was a joke, right? It was a joke. He could flirt as a joke, touch as a joke, and maybe, if he was feeling really ballsy, he could kiss Brett and play it off as a joke, somehow.

Eddy actually thought a lot about how he could do that and make it a joke. But after over-thinking it to a ridiculous degree, he realized anything he pulled would seem too contrived because he'd overthought it, so it was actually a no-go.

_Wouldn't it be hilarious if I sucked your dick? Just as a joke. A-ha._

So hilarious.

This was like a big game of pretend, only Eddy was becoming more certain by the day that he wasn't pretending, and that Brett actually was.

Brett was so good at playing along with his bullshit. He never said no. He always went all-in for things, even when they in fact made him uncomfortable.

And it was so obvious he was uncomfortable.

Eddy would keep pretending.

8

The past fifteen years were a spectacle of moments Eddy had deliberately ignored, let slip by.

Every moment they'd been alone together, every moment their eyes had met across the room, every moment friends had joked that they acted like an old married couple.

When they went to that public bath in Taiwan, Eddy had very carefully avoided looking at him, very carefully avoided thinking about it.

That one time there'd been a mix-up with hotels and they'd wound up in the same bed, they'd slept together in it and nothing else. Eddy had hardly slept that night, but nothing had happened.

Nothing was going to happen. Real life wasn't like one of those stupid anime where the protagonist was always falling over to land on tits. If you didn't take action, nothing would fall into your lap.

9

Eddy wished he could go back to being in denial, he really did. But there was no putting the chick back into the egg.

He tried distracting himself by keeping busy, but he knew it wasn't going to work for long. So as a result of clearly analyzing the issue, he came to realize he had two options:

One: continue on like this, slowly suffocating, but also incredibly happy at the same time.

Two: confess that he has been lying to Brett for just about fifteen years, now, and watch the easy intimacy they'd built together, that Eddy _needed,_ crumble to dust.

Brett wouldn't reject him. Eddy knew that. He would always be a good friend, the greatest. But things would be different.

Eddy was a coward for sure, but he knew that he'd hit his breaking point. More than anything, what got him was the dishonesty. He'd said he could tell anything to Brett, that there was nothing held back between them. He didn't want to make his own words into a lie.

Saying this right in the middle of a tour was probably incredibly bad timing, but he'd been making excuses about timing for a solid year now, and he was done. It had to be now. Now, or he wouldn't do it.

So late that evening, Eddy ordered some drinks from room service, and when Brett got back to the hotel room, he pushed a drink on Brett, too.

“What? You never drink,” Brett said, accepting the glass of gin and tonic with some confusion.

“I drink socially.” Eddy flopped himself down onto the bed, setting his drink on the side table. He didn't mention that he'd already downed a shot before Brett had arrived.

“Not when it's just us, though.” Brett stood awkwardly by the bed, holding his drink, but he took a sip.

They wound up talking about nothing.

In every extended silence, Eddy just about said it. Three, four times, he just about said it.

“Are you okay? You're weird tonight,” Brett asked him once, and Eddy came up with some bullshit excuse, talking his way out of it.

But then, in the silence after that, Eddy said, every word awkward on his tongue, “You trust me, right?”

“Of course.” Brett answered immediately, without hesitation.

“So you'd tell me anything.”

“...Anything you want to know. You're the same way, right?”

“...Yeah, of course,” Eddy lied, and hated himself for it.

They talked for a while after that about more of nothing, and with each moment that passed, it felt more and more impossible to say what he wanted to say. He was sobering up, and he didn't want to drink anymore. If he couldn't even say it drunk, how the hell could he say it now?

It was dark out, and the one bed lamp was dim. Eventually Brett got up to brush his teeth and wash his face and have a glass of water, and Eddy did the same. They had to get up early the next morning.

Eddy pulled himself into his bed, while Brett got into his. Eddy buried his face in the covers and readied himself for a night spent wallowing in self-loathing. Fuck, fuck _fuck,_ he wanted to say it, he _wanted _to, he was just too fucking terrified to do it. Why couldn't he just make himself say it? He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Brett turned off the bedside lamp, and the room went dark. Eddy listened to the sound of Brett breathing, trying to figure out if he was asleep yet, or not.

“...Hey, Eddy?” Brett said after an immeasurable moment. Eddy jolted a bit.

“Hmm?”

Eddy heard a long exhale, and then silence. “...I do trust you,” said Brett. “I just told myself it would just make things weird if you knew. But I guess that's just an excuse. Because I want you to know. I'm gay. ...Night.”

Eddy lay there for a moment. He wasn't even stunned, yet. To be stunned, you had to have a clue what the hell was going on.

“...Brett.”

No response.

“...Brett. Brett.” Eddy shuffled out of bed, coming to stand by Brett's bed and put his hands on the dim outline of the lump he saw there. He shook him a bit. “What? What was that?”

The lump curled up a little tighter, and Eddy shook harder, then ripped off the blankets. Brett was curled up on his side, in his dutifully-packed pyjamas (Eddy just slept in his clothes when they were on tour).

Eddy crawled up onto the bed over Brett, grabbing one shoulder to rock him in the most annoying manner possible. Brett was badly faking being asleep, eyes squeezed shut as Eddy shook him.

“You're gonna tell me something like that _now?_” Eddy's voice cracked a bit, and he shook Brett harder to mask how hard he was shaking. “Why not—why not at least ten years ago, it would've saved me so much—so much—” He broke off, not even sure where he was going. “How about all those times I asked you about girls, huh? Now I feel like a real fucking idiot.”

“I'm sorry,” Brett said quietly, but he didn't say anything else, and now Eddy was really starting to freak out.

“Do you like me?” Eddy blurted, the dumbest question of his life. Brett had told him to his face multiple times that he loved him.

Eddy had been the one to never respond.

“Of course I do! Fuck!” Brett yelled, and before the words were even done coming out of his mouth, Eddy was mashing their faces together.

Brett was still for a moment under Eddy's lips, and Eddy hesitated.

But then, an instant later, Brett turned his body toward him, wrapped his arms around Eddy's waist and kissed him painfully hard.

It was awkward. It was sudden. And it was weird. Eddy's heart was in his throat as Brett rolled them over, pinning Eddy beneath him and running one hand up Eddy's oversized shirt, the other one dipping into the waistband of his sweatpants.

Eddy cried out when Brett touched him, jolted. His arms were wrapped around Brett's neck, and he wanted to be closer, closer. He felt Brett's warm breath in his ear as he jacked Eddy with one hand, his grip too-tight but so welcome. He whimpered as Brett's hand stroked up his sides, tweaked one nipple, but those sounds were quickly cut off by an over-eager mouth and tongue.

The kiss was quick and sloppy. “I'm not gonna be able to cum,” Eddy said, glad the dark could hide his embarrassment. “I'm freaking out too hard.”

“Yeah.” Brett's face dropped to Eddy's chest, and he slowed his pace on Eddy's cock to a gentle caress, but didn't stop. “Me too.” Now that Brett pointed it out, Eddy felt the hand against his chest was trembling.

“How long?” Eddy asked, and he didn't have to specify what.

“...Since fucking high school, man.”

“Me, too. We are so fucking _stupid._”

Brett laughed, and it sounded a little bit hysterical. Eddy slid his hands down Brett's back and up his shirt, still not really believing that he was allowed to do this.

“You always dated girls,” Brett mumbled into his chest, accusatory. Eddy's slow-working brain was starting to realize how he would have looked, from Brett's perspective.

“I...” It would take a week to explain the state of mind that had gone into dating each one of them. Eddy eventually settled on, “I mean, I like girls, too.” He paused. “I thought it would never happen. With you, I mean.”

“Agh...” Brett's hand finally moved from his dick to join the other one on his chest. Eddy sort of wanted it to go back, but he also needed to have this conversation, first. “I said...I love you...”

“I thought that was like, _I love you, man!_ Not, _I love you_,_ yes homo!_ I was freaking my shit when you said that, just so you know!”

Brett snickered. “Yeah, it was kinda deliberately vague.”

“I just can't fucking—I still can't believe it.”

“I thought I was being obvious.”

“I thought _I_ was being obvious!”

“I thought you were joking!”

“Aghhh!” Eddy rolled them over, straddling Brett's waist to yank down his pyjama pants, exposing his erection. “Yeah, this is all a big joke! Now I'm gonna suck your dick as a joke! No homo!”

Brett just gasped slightly as Eddy's lips sank down over his length. Eddy had never done it before, but he knew what he liked receiving, so he just took as much as he could, maintaining firm suction as he moved up and down the shaft.

“Fuck...” Brett muttered, and his fingers came to weave through Eddy's hair, stroking his cheeks. He was hot and salty in Eddy's mouth, thrusting only a little, clearly holding back.

After a few minutes, Eddy began to realize that a blow job really was a job, and his mouth was getting tired.

“I'm not gonna cum either,” Brett said, pushing Eddy's face off gently. “I'm starting to feel overstimulated.”

Wiping his mouth, Eddy gladly flopped down on top of him instead. “Okay, because that was harder than I thought it'd be.”

“You've never sucked a dick before?”

“No. You?”

“Of course.”

“Tell me who, so I can be jealous.”

“No one important, seriously.”

After a pause, Eddy said, “But wait, that one time we played never-have-I-ever, you didn't drink when I said _never have I ever fucked a guy._”

“You remember that?” Brett was still playing with his hair, the other hand lightly running up Eddy's side in a way that made him shiver. “I mean, I hadn't, then. Just oral and handjobs.”

Eddy laughed and smushed Brett's face in both his hands. It was something he'd thought about doing a lot, but never felt comfortable doing. Just thinking about how he could touch Brett as much as he wanted now made him feel giddy. “Bullshit technicality! That counts as fucking!”

“No, it doesn't!”

“Yes, it does!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

Brett's response to that was a brutal and unfair tickle attack that Eddy had no way of defending against, and that tickle attack quickly devolved into something else when Brett bit him hard over his nipple and gathered a palmful of ass in each hand to squeeze hard.

“It's like three in the morning,” Eddy pointed out as Brett ground against him until he was hard again. “We have a plane to catch tomorrow.”

“Do you wanna go to sleep?” Brett asked, breath hitching slightly.

“No.”

Brett kissed him again, a little more restrained this time, less desperate teeth-clashing, but with a naughty little bite at the end that made Eddy's cock twitch.

“You like that?” Brett asked, and his tone of voice got Eddy low in his gut.

“I want you to be a little rough with me, yeah.”

Brett did everything he wanted, biting a line down his neck and marking his chest with hickies, scratching him across the thigh, holding him down as Brett jacked the both of their dicks together. “I love you, Eddy, I love you...”

Eddy came fast, this time, jolting and spilling cum into Brett's hand as he continued to stroke the both of them. Eddy cried out loud enough he was sure the room next door had to hear, hands bunched in the sheets, lost in the moment and unable to hold anything back. “I love you...”


End file.
